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Kindergarten Ipad Program Sees Positive Results Auburn, Maine, Research Study Initial Results Are In The initial results are in. iPads increased kindergarten literacy scores according to a new study from Auburn, Maine. Auburn School Department made world news last summer when they announced they were providing all of their incoming kindergarten students with Apple iPads. As one component of their district-wide Advantage 2014 program, Auburn educators are promoting the iPad and its apps as a dynamic literacy and math tool for students. The Advantage 2014 program seeks to bolster 3rd grade literacy and math scores by 2015, and the first phase of their research study is making them hopeful of attaining this goal. Auburn kindergarten teacher at Fairview Elementary School, Michelle Green thinks, "Being part of the Advantage 2014 iPad project is very special. It has been an eye opening opportunity to watch children use a tool of technology to learn in a way I never did as a child." Michelle's colleague at Washburn Elementary School, Jess Prue, agrees, "We are not only giving kids a new engaging way to learn, we are also preparing them for technology in the future. It is exciting!" Since Auburn is the nation's first public school system to provide iPads to each of their youngest students, the district is closely examining the program through a yearlong research study. Dr. Mike Muir, Auburn School Department's Multiple Pathways Leader, stated, "Too many innovative programs don't prioritize their own research, and even if they collect observations and stories later, they don't make the effort to do a randomized control trial, like we did. We wanted to make sure we could objectively examine the contribution of the iPads."

In the United States, many schools are seeing six-year-olds with cell phones. The average UK kid gets their first cell phone at eight. Children's access to mobile devices is staggering, as you can see from the "Learning in the 21st Century: Taking it Mobile!" survey. For instance, among middle school (6th-8th grade) students:59 percent have a cell phone24 percent have an Internet-enabled Smartphone53 percent have a personal laptop or tablet A generation of students is growing up with a different level of access to information at their collective fingertips